Fitness: P90X is package that really works

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MONTREAL - Infomercials touting the benefits of fitness in a box often fail to deliver. Especially those that promise to turn you from flabby to fabulous in 90 days. Not only are the benefits often overstated, the workouts themselves lack the vitality that comes with a more personal touch. Let’s face it, a solo workout in front of your TV while following canned instructions from a CD wears thin pretty quick.

But a study commissioned by the American Council on Exercise suggests that P90X may be the exception to that rule. The 12-CD boxed set, which retails for $139.97 at Walmart, bills itself as the “ultimate 90-day home fitness boot camp.” Said to have sold more than 3 million units, the workouts are designed by former celebrity trainer Tony Horton, who insists that the success of P90X is because of what he calls “muscle confusion.”

The concept of muscle confusion isn’t Horton’s alone. Rather, it’s a commonly held theory that suggests muscles adapt best when continually challenged by new tasks. And on that front at least, P90X delivers. The workouts are short and fast-paced, incorporating different types of training, including muscle conditioning, cardio, yoga, plyometrics and core training. No body part is left out and no style of exercise is ignored. All you need is a bit of floor space, a set of barbells, a pull-up bar and 60 dedicated minutes.

So with everyone from movie stars to the guy next door singing its praises, the ACE team turned once again to its favourite researcher, John Porcari at the University of Wisconsin, La Crosse, to find out whether P90X is worthy of its price tag.

Porcari pulled together a group of university students ages 19-26, all of whom were in good shape and familiar with the P90X program or a similar circuit-based workout. He measured their fitness and then asked them to complete four of the 12 workouts (plyometrics, legs and back, chest, shoulders and triceps, cardiox), all the while monitoring their heart rate. At the end of the workout, the exercisers recorded their perceived effort, which was also factored into the collection of workout-related statistics.

Interestingly, the data showed that P90X, in the words of Horton, does, indeed, “bring it.” When averaged out over the four workouts, heart rates among the men were between 67-83 per cent of max heart rate. The women exercised at 65-88 per cent of their max heart rate.

Calorie burn was calculated at 10.5-16.2 calories a minute for men and 7.2-12.6 calories per minute for women, which brought the total calories burned per workout at between 441-699 for men and 302-544 for women. The plyometrics workout offered the greatest calorie burn, while the chest, shoulders and triceps workout burned the least.

“There’s no doubt that if people want to get into shape, the best way to do it is with high-intensity, interval-training like you’re seeing here with P90X,” Dr. Porcari says. “The muscle confusion – that’s one of the biggest draws because you don’t get bored, you’re doing a lot of different workouts in a different sequence and your body never gets a chance to plateau.”

All of those numbers combine to cement P90X’s reputation as a great workout and one that is similar to running when it comes to calorie burn.

But it’s what the study doesn’t say that is also important to note.

First, P90X may be too intense for someone who has spent more time on the couch than in the gym. In fact, the pace of the workouts and the complexity of the exercises will prove challenging for novice exercisers.

“Some folks are going to have to dig down and see what they are made of,” said Horton when talking about his workout.

Also worthy of note is that to achieve the kind of results offered in the many testimonials used to sell the product, you’ll need to work out almost daily, which may prove to be the toughest part of the program. The other thing to keep in mind is that Porcari didn’t evaluate the dietary plans that accompany the P90X workouts. Nor did he comment on the professionalism of the instruction. According to Horton however, his “get ripped in 90-days” plan involves a total commitment to both his exercise and dietary plan.

That said, there’s nothing in Horton’s workouts that you can’t find elsewhere. The exercises, instruction and program design aren’t revolutionary. What they are is convenient, affordable (when compared to hiring a personal trainer) and varied, three important fundamentals for someone who struggles getting to the gym on a regular basis.

Just keep in mind that this isn’t a workout for everyone. If you have a bum knee, a bad back or any other chronic injuries or ailments, you should invest in a well-educated trainer who can personalize your workout so that you don’t irritate anything that’s already sore.

At the end of the day, regardless of Porcari’s findings, P90X is still a boxed workout that can’t help you correct poor technique, modify exercises to suit pre-existing injuries or dial down the intensity to suit your mood or exercise experience.

But it can help you get in shape without the expense of joining a gym if you manage to give it your all for 90 days.

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